Lyra heard the horns before she saw the soldiers.
She'd been in her father's study going over the reports she'd written, the ones that called Chris and his village 'potential' rather than 'threat', when the deep brassy notes rolled through the capital's morning air and she felt something tighten in her stomach because those weren't muster horns or shift-change signals. Those were deployment horns. Three long notes and a short, the pattern the Empire used when a force was being mobilized for active duty beyond the capital's walls.
She was out of her chair and crossing the room before she'd fully decided to move, pushing through the heavy oak door and into the corridor where servants flattened themselves against the walls as she passed. The Jarves estate sat on the eastern slope of the noble district, and from the second-floor balcony she could see the military road that wound down toward the main gates, and what she saw there made her stop.
Soldiers.
Not a patrol. Not a guard rotation. Columns of them, moving in organized formations down the wide stone road toward the eastern gate, their armor catching the early morning light and flashing in unison as they marched. She counted the banners as they passed — the Emperor's crest on crimson, the war council's seal beneath it — and felt her nails dig into the balcony railing because those weren't regular army colors, those were the banners of an authorized expedition.
They'd actually done it.
Lyra had known it was coming. Her father had once more told her over dinner three nights ago, his voice measured and careful the way it always was when he was delivering news he expected her to argue with. The council had reviewed her reports he said and told her how Commander Valen had already placed most of his most trusted into the force. How well it would be small and not a full army it would still be substantial enough to secure the area and assess the situation on the ground. A demonstration of Imperial authority and force to intimidate him into compliance, her father had told her, as if sending armed soldiers into a place where armed soldiers had no business being was anything other than what it was. A subjugation.
She'd argued only for her father to remain silent, letting her vent it all out as he often did when he'd already made up his mind, letting her wear herself out against the wall of his decision until she had nothing left to say. "They need to see what's out there, Lyra. A formal assessment. If this Chris is what you say he is, then a measured response protects everyone, including him. If he's something else, we need to know before the situation escalates beyond our control. You would do well to remember that I will put my family first and part of this response was from your own report, furthermore i will not strain my influence on this matter, rather we will adapt depending upon the outcome of this advance."
It was a clean argument. Neat and reasonable and impossible to poke holes in, and she recognized it as something Valen had written for her father to deliver because She knew he didn't think in military terms like Valen did. The commander had been pushing for this since before Lyra had returned from the Barrens, she was certain of it, and her reports had just given him the ammunition he needed. She'd been careful with her words — potential not threat, remarkable not dangerous — but Valen didn't need her to say the village was dangerous. He just needed her to confirm it existed, and she'd done that with every paragraph she'd written.
The columns kept moving. She counted roughly fifty soldiers by the time the main body passed beneath her line of sight, and behind them came the supply wagons, the horses, the mages in their grey cloaks walking in a tight cluster near the center of the formation. A knight led them — she didn't recognize the armor from this distance but the plume on the helmet was the color of a house she couldn't place so she made a note to find out which one later because knowing who led the force would tell her everything about how this expedition was supposed to go and its possible outcome.
Sir Aldric would have been her first guess but he was on thin ice from what she had heard, having done something to anger the commander. He would be lucky to not be sent as a outpost guard from what the rumors said, let alone leading a march. That meant Valen had picked someone else, someone with enough rank to command but not enough political weight to push back if things went wrong.
'Expendable' she thought, and hated herself for thinking it.
She watched until the last of the supply wagons disappeared through the eastern gate, and then she watched the gate close behind them, and then she stood on the balcony for a long time after that with her hands still gripping the railing and the morning sun warming her back while something cold settled in her chest.
one week to reach the Barrens. That's what the scouts had estimated when she'd made the journey herself. Another week at most to locate the village, assuming Chris hadn't moved it, which he probably hadn't because moving a village wasn't something you did on a whim. So roughly two weeks give or take, before a squad of Imperial soldiers showed up at the gates of a place she'd promised to report as potential rather than threat.
She wondered if Chris would see it the same way she did before shaking her head. He probably wouldn't, the short time she interacted with Chris already made it clear he didn't think like a noble, a soldier or even a politician, he thought like a man who'd built something from nothing in the middle of a wasteland and was trying to keep it alive well not truly knowing what he was doing. He'd most likely see armed strangers approaching his home and he'd do what anyone would do in his position, and then whatever happened next would be Valen's fault, not hers.
Except it would be hers too. She knew that. Her reports were in Valen's hands. Her name was on the assessment that had given the commander everything he needed to make his case. She could have written it differently, could have been less thorough, could have left out the details about the Rootmind and the defensive formations and the extent of what Chris's plants could actually do. She hadn't, because she'd believed that making the benefits and potential clear was a way to either make him an ally or place him under there protection well retaining most of his freedom, and now she was standing on a balcony watching soldiers march toward a place she'd told them about and wondering if honesty had been the right choice after all.
Her father found her there an hour later, still standing at the railing with her hands going numb from the grip.
"You're brooding," he said mildly, stepping up beside her and looking out over the city. "I can tell because you get that particular set to your jaw whenever you're trying to decide if you're angry at me or at yourself."
"Both," she said without looking at him.
"The force is a small one Lyra. Valen wanted twice the numbers but the Emperor overruled him. Fifty soldiers, a handful of mages, a knight to lead them. They're there to observe and absorb his village under our control, not to conquer or destroy him."
"That's not what Chris will see when they arrive at his gates in full armor with weapons drawn."
Lord Jarves was quiet for a moment. He had that look, the one that meant he was choosing his words carefully, and Lyra braced herself because that look usually preceded something she wouldn't like.
"If he's what you say he is, then he'll be smart enough to talk before he acts. And if he isn't..." He let the thought trail off, and Lyra felt something sharp twist behind her ribs because her father hadn't said if he's dangerous, he'd said if he isn't what you say he is, and that distinction was everything.
She turned away from the railing and walked back into the study without saying goodbye. Her reports were still on the desk, neatly stacked and waiting to be filed. She picked them up, looked at her own handwriting on the cover page, and felt the full weight of what she'd set in motion.
two weeks, give or take and they would be at his village, she only hoped he would be ready.